Diario Latino Brings News in Spanish to Parents and Kids
NCM Profile
NCM, Catalina Hayes-Bautista, Posted: Feb 10, 2005
Diario Latino just celebrated its one year anniversary, and with a growing Spanish-speaking population, its future looks bright.
The only Spanish language daily in San Diego, Diario Latino covers everything from the war in Iraq to Latin American soccer.
Because an estimated 90 percent of the Spanish speakers in San Diego are Mexican, the paper focuses on news from Mexico, analyzing Mexican politics and providing updates on Mexican telenovas, or soap operas.
“What we try to do is give people living on this side of the border information that they may not be able to find in any other medium,” says coordinating editor Abraham Nudelstejer.
President and general director Jose Santiago Healy says he recognized a need for Spanish-language news in San Diego’s Latino community. With 25 years of experience in publications – he also founded La Cronica de Mexicali in 1990 and Frontera de Tijuana in 1999 – Healy and his team designed Diario Latino to fill the void of information within San Diego’s Latino community.
“When you are in a place that is not your homeland you want to stay connected with people from your homeland by way of news,” says Nudelstejer. “This is what we try to do.”
In addition to its daily stories connecting readers to Mexico, Diario Latino offers weekly columns that provide its audience with ways to become familiar with their new country. Que Vida! serves as a guide to weekend events, Volante supplies information about the automotive world, and Nuestra Casa gives tips on home improvement and real estate in Tijuana and San Diego.
The paper also provides legal advice with a column entitled Asesoria Legal. The column features stories on topics such as how to save when wiring money to Mexico.
With a weekly circulation of about 100,000, and a website, www.diariolatino.com, Diario Latino is easily accessible to San Diego’s Spanish-speaking community.
Nudelstejer says it is important that Spanish speakers maintain a tradition of reading Spanish-language newspapers. “The majority of people who buy our newspaper are recent immigrants who do not speak English. How are we going to make it so that their babies, the second generation, continue reading in Spanish?”
In response to this challenge Diario Latino has created the weekly “ABC Diario,” a colorful two-page newspaper geared towards first, second, and third graders. This newly developed paper is released every Wednesday and delivered directly to Spanish-language and bilingual classes in elementary schools.
“ABC Diario” helps students maintain their language skills through crossword puzzles, math activities, and reading and spelling exercises in Spanish.
Initially only two schools participated in the program. Today more than 20 schools receive the publication.
Both students and teachers have given positive reviews to the program. “With this program, students become accustomed to reading a Spanish-language newspaper,” says Nudelstejer. “We hope that this custom becomes tradition and that this generation continues to read Spanish-language newspapers. And hopefully, of course, they read Diario Latino.”
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